The present invention pertains to dewatering of material streams. The present invention comprises an apparatus and an improved method for the removal of liquid (water) from sludges, slurries, or suspensions, generically and collectively referred to by the term “sludge”. Respecting particular devices, processes and methods of dewatering, sludge here are also referred to as influent.
In many industries sludge is a byproduct of industrial operations and processes. It is usually beneficial to separate the liquid and solid components of the sludge in order to reuse, better manage or dispose of the recovered material, be it either the solids or liquid.
The ability to economically, efficiently and effectively dewater sludge at high process rates is very desirable by numerous industries. The dewatered solids need to be sufficiently dehydrated in order to be manageable and to meet landfill regulations or for beneficial reuse. The effluent (discharge water) typically needs to be adequately clear in order to meet regulatory requirements, to be reused or released to waterways, sewage or wastewater systems. There are prior various devices, apparatuses and methods employed to dewater sludge. These include plate-and-frame filter presses, filter belt presses, settling lagoons, weirs, clarifiers and geotextile bags and other mechanical dewatering devices such as vacuum-assisted dewatering boxes and beds. Each of these technologies has considerable drawbacks. For example, settling lagoons, weirs and clarifiers have large land requirements and settling time is determined by the specific gravity of the solids. Plate filter and frame presses and belt filter presses are labor and energy intensive and often have long cycle time. Geotextile bags are expensive, labor intensive, have large land requirements and take months to process.
None of the existing devices, methods or technologies provide both effective and economical solution to dewatering demands. Therefore, a flexible and economically device and method of dewatering is desired and needed for treating a great variety of slurries and sludges and similar materials.